A 19-year-old male, Andrew Miles, is the second patient in the U.S. to live with a total artificial heart outside the hospital, thanks to an Emory cardiothoracic surgeon.
Mr. Miles was born with aortic stenosis, a rare heart condition that causes the aortic valve to narrow, restricting blood flow and leading to heart failure, according to a Feb. 4 system news release. Mr. Miles was transferred to Emory shortly after his high school graduation due to heart failure. He was not a candidate for a heart transplant.
Mani Daneshmand, MD, cardiothoracic surgeon at Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare and associate professor of surgery at Emory University School of Medicine, treated the patient with a double ventricular assisted device, which he invented. The therapy replaces the heart using two left ventricular assist device pumps to create a total artificial heart.
The patient is now the second person in the nation with this type of artificial heart. Mr. Miles hopes to get a heart transplant one day, but for now he said he is happily living as a teenager.
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